Orestes Sleeping, Pylades Musing
by grandR
Summary: Grantaire loving his Enjolras. That's pretty much all.


A/N: if I owned the characters, I would be Victor Hugo and I probably wouldn't be writing fanfiction.

Orestes Sleeping, Pylades Musing

Enjolras walked briskly over the bridge in the Rue de Mondetour toward the cafe Musain. The Paris air was damp and chilly - it was early on a misty fall morning - not another soul appeared to be awake at this hour, although the exhausted, determined Enjolras would hardly have noticed if there were. The river Seine blended in with the gray of the streets and the gray of the sky to form a sort of single gray expanse - a mirage of likeness; of safety. In truth, one fateful step would send him into the churning waters below. But no such step would come. Enjolras was self-assured. He had walked this path many times before and indeed would have expected to many times again, had he thought about such things. Pitch black, misty gray, glittering sunlight - it was all the same to Enjolras. The young man had once been able to cross the bridge and take in the beauty of the river and the feeling of its gentle spray- to notice the change of the seasons and greet the cheerful sun in kind. But many years had passed since the carefree blonde boy skipped contentedly through the streets of Paris. His gait was no longer the inquisitive, leisurely step of a curious, happy child but rather the purposeful march of a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. And he did.

Enjolras - tall, blonde, piercingly blue-eyed, statuelike, cold, devastatingly beautiful by any standards and entirely unaware - was devoted to one mistress only - his Patria. Freedom. For no mortal man or woman did this man show affection, but for the liberation of humanity and the souls of the wretched alone did his heart beat. This enigmatic man, who, for his age and godlike appearance should be enjoying the girls and spirits Paris had to offer, was instead harboring the deep passions and stirrings that are typical of those poor lofty, pure souls afflicted or perhaps blessed with the drive of the lion without the understanding of man. For the souls of the many, this man sacrificed his own. For Enjolras could no longer love anything or anyone, save for his country. The sad irony is that in the very idealistic world he envisioned, he himself would be least able to appreciate the compassion he had all but sold his soul to create. Therefore, this man, who was easily the most beautiful human specimen anyone had seen, was just that - a specimen, to be venerated, put on a pedestal, worshipped, and ultimately left alone. He could not be loved by any, beautiful though he was, because he seemed to be of a different species. He could not be loved by any, that is, save for one. Grantaire.

Yes, the fiercest believer could only be loved by the darkest skeptic, and this is because it took the skeptic to understand that your soul is a very steep price to pay for a new world. It took the nonbeliever to understand that his inability to love stemmed from someone that was once human, and that part that had once been human hardened into a shell of self-protection. No one but the drunkard understood, because no one but he had the same shell, although for a very different reason.

Grantaire himself grinned fiercely as he stared down into his bottle of absinthe. Funny how he was the black sheep of the society, yet he was the one there before even the great Enjolras. Granted, it was about two in the morning. Yes, what a laugh this situation was, he thought wryly. Too drunk to find his way from the bar upstairs anywhere but the basement of the cafe where his friends - if he could even call them that - met. So thus he sat at that table in the corner, quietly brooding about his absinthe and his Apollo.

For that is what Enjolras was. A god, radiating light down upon his subjects - untouchable, impenetrable. All the silly students who thought they were coming to the cafe for the cause. He laughed out loud at this, for he was very much alone and hadn't much care even had he not been. They were there because of Him. The way he talked, the way the sun glinted on his hair, the way those piercing blue eyes seemed to lock up your soul and keep it in their grasp until they are satisfied with it. Sure, he spoke of the cause as his motivation, but he was its heart and soul. Without him, they were just empty words. It was he who provided the drive and the passion - the living, breathing, flesh-and-blood proof that the cause was as worthy as it seemed to be. In the unknowing guise of the revolution, the students came because Enjolras captivated them and drove them to discover things about themselves they had never even known. He was captivating. He was enthralling. He _was_ the revolution! He was also beautiful. He was also...standing in the doorway. Grantaire almost wished he was passed out already. The presence of Enjolras often had this effect on him. He felt useless and unworthy, but still he stayed - it was like looking into the sun - to stare was wrong but to turn away was impossible. He was not a true believer, and therefore staying was staring directly into the sun against his better judgement. One day it would blind him, but till that day he was content to look.

He watched silently as Enjolras entered the cafe. Enjolras was so intent in his thoughts, he didn't even notice the man sitting in the shadows, and Grantaire was in no mood to change that. He merely kept his eyes fixed on the blonde man as he set to work spreading out papers and lighting a candle to place on the end of the table he sat at. This table happened to be farthest from Grantaire's own, so his fears of being discovered waned considerably. Enjolras sighed deeply, then began to write on a bit of parchment in front of him. What he was writing, Grantaire couldn't tell, but he hoped it was a new speech. He loved watching Enjolras speak. The spark that was always dangerously threatening beneath the surface of Enjolras burst into brilliant flame when he talked about his revolution, and Grantaire, so used to being cold and dark, was drawn to the flame like a moth.

Sitting from this distance, Grantiare couldn't quite make out every detail of Enjolras' appearance, but he knew them all by heart anyway. The way the one strand of golden hair always curled a different direction than the rest. The little freckle that was on the back of his neck. The graceful curve of the pale skin down to where it met the plain white shirt and black necktie. In the flickering candlelight, Enjolras scribbled away intently. He paused for a moment, his pen poised to continue writing. He raked his other hand through his curls and then rested his head on it as he surveyed his work. This new angle cast a different shadow on the wall and it made Enjolras seem three times as large and ten times as untouchable. Which was perfect symbolism, really, thought Grantaire. Grander than life. That's what he was. And the facelessness of the shadow worked in to the metaphor, he decided. This man refused to become personal with anyone, and therefore he himself was just an outlet for the revolution. Only Les Amis truly knew him as a person.

Or did they? What did they know about Enjolras? They knew he was a student. Some of them knew where he lived. They knew he was from a wealthy family, but that he had severed ties with them long ago. They knew he was idealistic and devoted to making the world a better place. But that was all. No one knew if he had ever laughed or loved or lost. No one knew if he raced through the streets as a boy, or learned fencing, or did well in primary school. His only identity was the revolution, and its identity in turn was him. What a sad, sad thing to be.

As Grantaire's thoughts finished their liquor-adled digression, he refocused on Enjolras and realized that he hadn't moved in a long time. He was a quick reader, and had surely finished his meager paragraph by now. Curious, he pushed his chair back. He must have been a little drunk still, for he was more clumsy than he had expected to be when he stood. The chair scraped violently across the floor in a sudden, rough burst of unexpected sound, piercing the silence. Grantaire froze, waiting for Enjolras to show signs that his reverie had been broken. Still, the blonde angel did not stir. Suddenly, it occurred to Grantaire that the man must be asleep. Not completely sure why, he stumbled over to the table where the man was. Sure enough, now that he could see Enjolras from the front, it was obvious that he was fast asleep. Grantaire didn't know what to do. Half of him was awestruck by Enjolras' simple beauty, while the other half was terrified. Enjolras looked so...vulnerable...and sleep was so...ordinary...it didn't seem like it should suit him.

And yet, suit him it did. It was impossible to describe how something so animalistic as sleep turned this already angellic man to a god, and yet as he sat there in slumber, Grantaire forgot all other thoughts he had previously possessed. Enjolras' curls framed his pale, marble face. Although lids masked the penetrating blue eyes Grantaire loved so well, he did not mind. For in this moment, it was as if the heavens had opened and Grantaire was given permission to - if only briefly - look upon the sun up close. His lips were parted ever so slightly, and his steady, even, breathing made very little sound.

Grantaire was overcome with the sudden, desperate need to curl up with the warm body before him and simply exist in the same space as his idol. Enjolras' hand held his writing instrument in a loose grip, and as Grantaire looked down he could see the beginnings of a speech outline. He was tempted to read it, but a sigh from Enjolras seemed to both warn him not to, and beckon him to look upon the beautiful creature for as long as he could. He obliged and stood there memorizing every curve of the strong jaw, every arch of the eyebrow, every strand of hair that grew in sight. He unwillingly noticed his heart beating quickly at the proximity of this demigod. And with that, some of the elation slipped away. For he knew when the man awoke the moment of intimacy would be gone and Enjolras would know nothing of it. The sudden, sharp pain of remembering that Enjolras would never be this closet to him whilst awake was too much for the intoxicated Grantaire to bear.

With one last look at his Orestes, Pylades retreated out the back door of the Musain. There, he curled up on the steps and joined his Enjolras in slumber.


End file.
